When Should I start to Worry?

Alright so I acquired a female BP at the Daytona show back in August of 2011. She has grown up nicely and to the best of my knowledge I have no husbandry issues. I have a 40 gallon tank with two identical hides, a water dish, and a UTH on one side. My apartment's temp changes throughout the day/year and so at night the cool side of the tank is no lower than 72F, and the warm side is about 80F. During the day the cool side can be as high as 80F with a warm side up to 92-96F. I use a rheostat to regulate the UTH and an IR temp gun to check temps. Humidity ranges between 40% up to 70%. Normally it is about 50-60% but some of these cold winter nights it got down lower than I would have liked.

She's taken F/T readily since I can remember, but I had some issues moving her from mice to rats. The last few feedings though were no problem. She had eaten fairly regularly up through January 20th of this year. Then she went off feed. She shed February 1st but did not eat again until February 24th, only eating one item. She has not had any food since. She shed again on the 4th of this month. I don't know why the weight came back up. Measurement error, or perhaps a big drink of water?

So most of the threads on this forum and elsewhere say not to worry unless she starts losing weight. She wasn't losing weight until about a couple of weeks ago.

I have offered her F/T rats and mice, and even a few live small rats once a week and every time she turns her nose up at them. Here are the dates and weights.

2-1.............. shed
2-7 ............. 1398g
2-22............. 1372g
2-24............. 29g rat
3-17............. 1396g
4-1 ............. 1393g
4-4 .............. shed
4-13 ............ 1313g
4-19............. 1324g (today)

She's probably about 46" inches long. How low of weight should she get to before I start to worry, and would be the best course of action should she get to that weight? What would you do if it were your animal?

I figured she went into some kind of brumation for the winter, which is not uncommon, but with it being the end of April and her weight coming down, I figure her metabolism has picked up and she should be eating any time now right?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Weight loss after shed is common, so I wouldn't be worrying yet. The gain of weight could be due to water or, yes, a measurement error. I wouldn't worry. You could try live to try to get her feeding again if you wanted.

I did not try live today but I have tried live the last 2 times. Rat pup size prey items. No go.

I will try live next week.

A rat pup is much too small. A 1300 gram snake needs at least a small rat (50+ grams). If a prey item is too small the snake won't even consider it food. Try upping your prey size when you offer next week.

I had been using a smaller size so my corns could eat the leftover if the BP ignored it. I will try a bigger prey item next time. Thanks.

If you buy live you can just keep it alive until the next week. If you have a dog, give the rat dog food to eat if not, ask the pet store for a handful of food if they're willing to give you some.

Does anybody else want to weigh in?

A lot of time snakes will go off food around this time because it's the "breeding" season. I wouldn't worry too much about it and just offer food weekly. Eventually your snake will start eating a gain.

Seems to me that you want your temps a little more steady. I'd get a thermostat, even a cheap one if that was my limit. I'd also make sure the cold side stays warmer at night. BP's don't really "like" a drop in night temps, underground temps don't fluctuate so much.

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Seems to me that you want your temps a little more steady.

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I've seriously thought about this. For most of the year the temps are very steady. Being in Florida the AC runs almost constantly, which keeps the apartment at the same temp. It's only in the winter that things change, and even then it isn't much. I've only been here a couple of years, and the first winter the apartment temps dropped for just a month or so right in the coldest part of January. This year its been a bit colder than normal according to the local weather guy. Yesterday it was something like 20F cooler than normal, which means we had the heat on instead of the AC, which seems weird for April.

I guess my point is that since this year the temperature was not as steady as last years, I may reconsider buying a thermostat. I thought it would not be necessary, but the unpredictability of mother nature (and you) tell me that perhaps it is.

Thanks for the advice.

I too would suggest less variation. Night drops while not needed will not hurt either (as long as they are not overly dramatic) however I would suggest night drops be ambient air temp drops not hot spot drops I believe the hot spot should be constant.

That said I don't think it is a huge issue just it would be better. The exact trigger for breeding is not certain, humidity changes or temperature or some combination of them. Atmospheric pressure hard to know. In the wild most royals enter breeding season together and eggs hatch in a short period of time in captivity breeding times are all over the place. The trigger is clearly environmental but what precisely is unclear. It seems likely the fast is a breeding response. The conditions you control may have an effect on that and depending on what they are you may artificially extend that. I would suggest your snake is in breeding mode and will come out of it sooner or later. I would also suggest constant temps and control over the surface and air temps will keep breeding cycles regular and for a natural duration.

I wouldn't worry yet, just keep eye on any weight changes. Continue to offer appropriate sized meals and sooner or later he snatch it up.

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Originally Posted by captainjack0000

...I may reconsider buying a thermostat.

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You will thank yourself if you do. If you get the right one you can have complete control of ambient and hot spot.

I use a couple of Reptile Basics stats for my ball and a couple other animals, and they are great, but in retrospect a single Herpstat 4 would probably handle all my needs and be less expensive in the long run.

Then there's the roommates' corn and she's on a $25.00 on/off type Zoo Med or Zilla with a dial and it does just fine.

Point is I don't have to worry about outside influences affecting the inside cage temps in a drastic way.

It's been a long time since I have lived in Florida and you guys do have steadier temps but as you've seen this winter nothing is 100% predictable.

For those people in the future who find this thread while dealing with your own hunger strike, and everybody else that remembers this thread, my girl ate yesterday. I had been offering every couple of weeks a small rat, sometimes live, sometimes freshly killed, and nothing.

Yesterday I offered a f/t mouse (a 25g one) to my biggest corn, and he turned his nose up at it. He's been looking for a mate since April, so no big surprise there. I figured, what the heck, lets see if the BP wants it. And after getting it up to temp, she took it. Now let's hope she readily takes a rat next time. I can't be feeding my 1300g python 25g mice all of the time.

Total number of days without food - 122 (plus prior to that feeding, there were an additional 35 days where she didn't eat) So 1 meal in 157 days.

She ate Jan 20th, Feb 24th, and June 26th.

YAY!!!!!!

Congrats!!